Originally Posted by SEA_Tigger
I understand those who say "why add seats when your load factor is only 70%?", but the key to that is volume. Most UA FlyerTalkers curse TED with a passion due to no First Class, but TED flies 85%-100% loads so those extra eighteen Economy seats are generating more revenue per flight then those 12 First seats (as most TED routes were under 5% paid First) for no other reason your selling 18 Economy seats at the same price you sold the 12 First seats for, and you now have six extra revenue seats and lower service costs (no meals, no free liquor). So if US lowers fares to fill those seats, they can make on volume what they're losing on per seat. 100 seats at $200 a seat generates $20,000 in revenue, but if they can sell all 150 seats at $150 a seat, that's $22,500 in revenue. It gets even better on RJs, when you actually put 70 seats in a 70-seat RJ then a mixed-class with 56 seats.
I think that it's me your referring to because I did make the 70% comment in another thread. But I can justify that. US downsized the number of F class seats on the 757s, and now flies the 757s to LAS and other high leisure routes including many cities in FL. The F8 757 is almost like US's version of TED. And that's where US is seeing the 85%+ load factors. On most other routes, load factors are sitting in the 70-75% range- so why the need for more Y seats when their not filling the ones that they already have?
And BTW- most carriers like UA (due to outrageous pricing) sell less than 3% of all seats in their First class cabins on domestic routes.